This process is repeated for four days; they are then left for three weeks, merely turning the flitches every other day.

THE TWO SIDES THAT REMAIN, and which are called flitches, are to be cured for bacon.

They are first rubbed with salt on their insides, or flesh sides, then placed one on the other, the flesh sides uppermost, in a salting-trough which has a gutter round its edges to drain away the brine; for, to have sweet and fine bacon, the flitches must not be sopping in brine, which gives it the sort of vile taste that barrel and sea pork have.

Every one knows how different is the taste of fresh dry salt from that of salt in a dissolved state; therefore change the salt often,once in 4 or 5 days; let it melt and sink in, but not lie too long; twice change the flitches, put that at bottom which was first on the top: this mode will cost you a great deal more in salt than the sopping mode, but without it your bacon will not be so sweet and fine, nor keep so well.

As for the time required in making your flitches sufficiently salt, it depends on circumstances.

It takes a longer time for a thick than a thin flitch, and longer in dry than in damp weather, or in a dry than in a damp place; but for the flitches of a hog of five score, in weather not very dry or damp, about 6 weeks may do; and as yours is to be fat, which receives little injury from over-salting, give time enough, for you are to have bacon until Christmas comes again. 807.

With regard to smoking the bacon, two precautions are necessary: first, to hang the flitches where no rain comes down upon them; and next, that the smoke must proceed from wood, not peat, turf, or coal.

The salted bacon, in pairs of flitches with the insides to each other, is piled one pair of flitches above another on benches slightly inclined, and furnished with spouts or troughs to convey the brine to receivers in the floor of the salting-house, to be afterwards used for pickling pork for navy purposes.

The salted bacon, in pairs of flitches with the insides to each other, is piled one pair of flitches above another on benches slightly inclined, and furnished with spouts or troughs to convey the brine to receivers in the floor of the salting-house, to be afterwards used for pickling pork for navy purposes.

In this state the bacon remains a fortnight, which is sufficient for flitches cut from nogs of a carcass weight less than 15 stone (14 lbs.

Flitches of a larger size, at the expiration of that time, are wiped dry and reversed in their place in the pile, having, at the same time, about half the first quantity of fresh, dry, common salt sprinkled over the inside and incised parts; after which they remain on the benches for another week.

Hams being thicker than flitches, will require, when less than 20 lbs.

This is effected by hanging the flitches and hams for 2 or 3 weeks in a room heated by stoves, or in a smoke-house, in which they are exposed for the same length of time to the smoke arising from the slow combustion of the sawdust of oak or other hard wood.

Skink will scorch them, brave Gloster; Make carbonadoes of their bacon-flitches; Deserve to be counted valiant by his valour, And Rivo will he cry, and Castile too, And wonders in the land of Seville do.

And slice the bacon-flitches as they hang.

The invaders entered the house, and returned, cramming their mouths with bread, and chopping asunder flitches of bacon.

Hams and bacon forming part of his own trade, he wrote to certain farmers with whom he was in the habit of dealing, to send him up an unlimited supply of flitches and gammons; and his orders being promptly and abundantly answered, he soon found he had more bacon than he could possibly consume.

My mother shook her head, and looked up at the flitches of bacon that hung from the ceiling.

R108575, 9Mar53, Leon Nelson Flint (A) FLITCH, JOHN ERNEST CRAWFORD, tr. Essays and soliloquies.

The said Sir Philip shall find, maintain, and sustain, one Bacon Flitch, hanging in his Hall at Whichenovre ready arrayed all times of the Year, but in Lent, to be given to every Man or Woman married, after the Day and the Year of their Marriage be past, in Form following.

Mr. SPECTATOR, 'According to my Promise, I herewith transmit to you a List of several Persons, who from time to time demanded the Flitch of Bacon of Sir Philip de Somervile and his Descendants; as it is preserved in an ancient Manuscript under the Title of The Register of Whichenovre-Hall, and of the Bacon Flitch there maintained. '

Mr. SPECTATOR, 'According to my Promise, I herewith transmit to you a List of several Persons, who from time to time demanded the Flitch of Bacon of Sir Philip de Somervile and his Descendants; as it is preserved in an ancient Manuscript under the Title of The Register of Whichenovre-Hall, and of the Bacon Flitch there maintained. '

We are told that his hall-roof was full of bacon-flitches, and his store-room of eggs, butter, and cheese.

Escobar then presented him with a cask of wine and two flitches of bacon, and sailed away again that same night without waiting for any letters.

With its clay floor and huge open fireplace, with its walls lined with curtained sleeping bunks, and its rafters loaded with harpoons, sharp oval-headed lances, coils of rope, flitches of bacon or bags of flour, it showed a picture of rude comfort.